Stagestruck

by Peter Lovesey

  On the other side, eyes down for a whole obstacle course of cables, he saw nobody like the make-up girl and he now had a choice of routes. The dressing rooms seemed the better way. He dodged past some waiting stagehands and away from the wings. No one was in the narrow passageway ahead. She must really have shifted to be out of sight already, unless she was still over the other side where Ingeborg was searching.

  A man wired up with headset and mike appeared from the number two dressing room. Diamond asked if Belinda had come this way.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘The make-up girl. Small, dark hair. She was in the wings just now with a face brush checking the actors.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask in wardrobe?’

  Good suggestion – if he could find it. Wardrobe was part of the undercroft suite, along with the band rooms and the company office. Earlier, when he’d interviewed Kate, he’d got there by another route.

  The headset man pointed the way.

  Simple.

  Downstairs, around a couple of turnings, he recognised the door and opened it. Kate was at the far end grappling with what he took to be one of her tailor’s dummies until he spotted that her dress was pulled up to her waist and the dummy had a head of curly black hair with a bald spot and was the back view of Hedley Shearman without trousers humping her against a wall as if there was no tomorrow.

  With his police training, Diamond first thought rape was being committed and it was his duty to intervene. Just in time, he registered that Kate was shouting, ‘Yes!’ with every thrust.

  Belinda wasn’t in the room. In the circumstances it would have been odd if she were.

  He left them to it, too involved to have noticed him, and closed the door.

  Where now? After that distracting spectacle, he needed to refocus on the search for Belinda. His ignorance of the layout backstage was a huge handicap. He took the steps up to stage level intending to look into the main dressing rooms. Before he got there the phone in his pocket vibrated. He put it to his ear. ‘Found her?’

  Ingeborg’s voice told him, ‘Yes, guv. First floor, dressing room ten. Can you get here?’

  ‘Try and stop me.’

  He knew his way to the OP side and there he asked one of the crew. The nearest stairs were pointed out.

  ‘Dressing room ten. Is it somewhere nearby?’

  ‘You can’t miss it.’ The promise that guarantees the opposite.

  In fact there was only one dressing room and Ingeborg must have heard his heavy tread.

  ‘Guv?’

  He found her standing beside the make-up girl, who looked about sixteen and terrified. Short, and slightly built, with dark, cropped hair, in a black T-shirt and form-fitting trousers, she was still holding the brush and box.

  ‘Exactly who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Belinda Craigie. I work here.’

  ‘What’s in the box?’

  ‘Talc.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘Hand it across.’

  ‘But I need it for later.’

  He opened the box and sniffed. Tentatively he touched the powder with his little finger. There was no reaction. He wetted another finger and made a light contact. Nothing happened. ‘Where did you get this, Belinda?’

  ‘The wardrobe department. It’s a fresh box, opened this afternoon. I took the wrapper off myself.’

  ‘So you know why I’m asking?’

  ‘Clarion Calhoun?’ Alarm showed in her eyes. ‘I had nothing to do with that.’

  ‘Is it your job to touch up the actors’ make-up before they go on?’

  ‘One of my jobs. I help out in the box office and take phone calls. ’

  ‘And were you here Monday evening?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Checking the actors’ faces?’

  ‘Not all of them. Only those who needed it.’

  ‘Clarion?’

  A vigorous shake of the head. ‘Her dresser looked after her. Denise.’

  ‘Are you certain of that?’

  ‘Hundred per cent. I watched her.’

  ‘Denise putting powder on Clarion’s face while she was waiting in the wings?’ This was dynamite if it was true.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was she using the same stuff as you?’

  ‘I don’t know. She had her own powder box.’

  ‘From the wardrobe department, like yours?’

  She spread her hands. She didn’t know.

  ‘Did it look the same?’

  ‘I can’t say for sure. There wasn’t much light.’

  He checked the tip of his little finger again. The skin was unharmed. ‘You just said you opened a new box today.’

  Belinda nodded. ‘Strict orders from Mr Shearman: start with fresh powder every performance.’

  ‘But was that the rule on Monday, before the incident happened?’

  She blushed. ‘No, I used the box I’d opened for the dress rehearsal. I didn’t want to waste it.’

  ‘And where had it been kept overnight? In the wardrobe department?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was there a second box beside it – the one Denise used?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. She brought her own.’

  ‘In a bag, or what?’

  ‘I don’t think she had a bag. I just saw her working on Clarion before she went on.’

  ‘Did you speak at all?’

  ‘We’re supposed to keep quiet.’

  This young girl came across as a convincing witness. More and more, suspicion was returning to Denise as the cause of Clarion’s scarring. Diamond could see how impressed Ingeborg was. His hypothesis that Denise was innocent and a murder victim was unravelling by the second.

  He asked about Belinda’s background, something he should have started with. ‘Did you know Clarion before you started working here?’

  ‘I knew about her. Everyone does. Well, everyone with an interest in music.’

  ‘Personally?’

  She sighed. ‘I should be so lucky. I don’t mix with pop stars.’

  ‘Would you call yourself a fan?’

  ‘To be honest, she’s more for people over thirty.’

  ‘Not cool, then?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘And you. Where are you from?’

  ‘Twickenham.’

  He perked up. ‘I know Twickenham. I played rugby there for the Metropolitan Police.’

  Ingeborg smiled at Belinda in a sisterly way and said, ‘That’s all some people know about Twickenham.’

  Diamond gave Ingeborg a sharp look. ‘How much do you know about it?’

  ‘Eel Pie Island, Alexander Pope – ’

  ‘Okay, I shouldn’t have asked.’

  Belinda said, ‘I was named after a character in a poem by Pope.’

  ‘It crossed my mind. It’s an unusual name,’ Ingeborg said.

  It hadn’t crossed Diamond’s. He wasn’t going to ask which poem. There were times when he found himself in agreement with the CID gripe that Inge was too clever by half. ‘So what brought you to Bath?’

  ‘The job. After drama school, I applied everywhere. I want to act, but when you’re starting out you take anything you’re offered, front-of-house, part-time, anything. Mr Shearman saw me helping in the box office and said he’d do his best to find me something backstage. I got lucky.’

  Shearman no doubt thought he’d got lucky, too. Before long he’d be offering something more backstage. ‘It’s tough for young actors, I’ve heard. How did you feel when you heard about Clarion walking into a starring role?’

  A catch question she dealt with. ‘I was told she went to drama school.’

  ‘But not one of the better ones,’ Ingeborg said.

  ‘All I’m hoping is to be picked as a spear-carrier or something. I can’t be jealous of someone getting the lead.’

  ‘Not many spear-carriers in this play,’ Diamond said.

  Belinda smiled.
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br />   ‘You’d better get back to your duties,’ he said.

  ‘May I have my talc back?’

  He handed it across and she took off fast.

  ‘Not a serious suspect, but a useful witness,’ he told Ingeborg.

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘It’s pretty obvious Denise was brushing caustic soda on Clarion’s face while she was waiting to go on. One mystery solved.’

  ‘The delay?’

  ‘Yes, and if we can find the box she was using we’ll get the contents analysed.’

  ‘Is it worth searching wardrobe?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll have to – but my guess is that if Denise knew what she was doing she wouldn’t be so careless as to leave it lying about.’

  ‘We could look now.’

  He passed a hand thoughtfully over his head. ‘Should be okay by now.’ He told her about the scene of passion he’d stumbled into.

  ‘What an old goat,’ Ingeborg said. ‘I thought he fancied Gisella.’

  ‘He fancies anyone willing to have him.’

  11

  An alert policeman spotted Denise’s Vauxhall Corsa late the same evening when the huge Charlotte Street car park was just about empty. It was in the top section near the path linking with Royal Avenue, below the Crescent.

  Bath Central phoned Diamond at home. He hadn’t been in for long and was microwaving a TV dinner. He turned it off and said he’d come at once. ‘You can never relax,’ he told Raffles, who had just been fed and was actually quite relaxed. ‘You know the real reason I’m going hungry tonight? Because Georgina wants to tread the boards in Sweeney Todd. That’s the hidden agenda here.’

  It was dark when he arrived. Keith Halliwell was there with a torch and so was the young constable credited with the find.

  ‘Nice work,’ Diamond said, trying to raise his own spirits. ‘Have you looked inside?’

  Halliwell shone his torch over the interior. ‘Nothing to see.’

  ‘Let’s have the boot open. Got the tools?’

  Halliwell unfurled a cloth containing a set that had belonged to a housebreaker. He selected a jemmy.

  With the job under way, Diamond told the constable they could manage without him now. ‘Top result,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Thanks, sir.’ But the young officer lingered, shuffling. ‘Would you like my torch?’

  ‘Don’t you need it? You’re still on patrol, aren’t you?’

  ‘I can easily get a spare.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  ‘I was thinking…’

  ‘No harm in that.’

  ‘Well, wondering, actually, if there are any openings in CID.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘That’s my ambition, sir, to do plainclothes work.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Another one. What’s your name?’

  ‘Pidgeon, sir. PC George Pidgeon.’

  ‘Well, Pidgeon, I’ll bear you in mind, but right now we’re trying out Sergeant Dawkins. Do you know him?’

  ‘I’ve worked for him, yes.’ From the tone, the experience hadn’t been a rip-roaring success.

  ‘And it may be a while before we take on anyone else.’

  ‘Understood.’ George Pidgeon’s face said it all. He nodded and walked off into the darkness.

  Halliwell meanwhile was bending metal, mutilating the car. One extra heave on the jemmy and the boot-lid sprang open to reveal a large, soft bag and the leather case Kate had described.

  ‘Huh,’ Diamond said with satisfaction. ‘You know what this means?’

  Halliwell shook his head. It was near the end of a long day. ‘You’d better tell me, boss.’

  ‘She had no intention of reporting for work when she returned to the theatre or she’d have taken this lot with her.’

  ‘She’d made up her mind to kill herself already?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘Why not do it at home?’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘Sleeping tablets.’

  ‘There weren’t any. She didn’t take them. The theatre was a better place.’

  ‘Like her second home, you mean?’

  ‘For the jump.’ Sentiment didn’t wash with Diamond. But he wasn’t always clear-headed in his personal actions. He was in the act of reaching for the make-up case when Halliwell said, ‘You ought to be wearing gloves.’

  ‘Raw caustic soda? You’re right. These fingers are old friends.’

  ‘I was thinking about handling the evidence.’

  ‘Think what you like. I’m never too proud to take advice.’

  Halliwell didn’t say a word.

  Better protected, Diamond reached for the leather case and shone the torch inside, over a neat arrangement of brushes, combs, lipsticks and eye-liners strapped to the side. Lower down, jars and tins, a roll of cotton-wool pads and a black cylindrical box that he lifted out. ‘Remarkably like the one Belinda was using.’

  ‘Careful, boss.’

  He handed Halliwell the torch. ‘Hold this.’ Then he opened the box. A small amount of white powder lay inside.

  ‘I wouldn’t sniff it if I were you.’

  ‘Could be harmless.’ He moistened his gloved forefinger with spit and dipped it in the powder. ‘It’s supposed to form a viscous slime that burns through skin.’ He rubbed thumb and finger together. ‘Doesn’t feel slimy.’

  ‘We’d better get it tested properly,’ Halliwell said.

  ‘Only if they’re quick about it. I’m not waiting a week for results. Can you get some of this to an analyst first thing tomorrow and stay with him till it’s done?’

  A shake of the head. ‘Sorry, guv. I’m down for the postmortem.’

  A fixture not to be altered. The only other detective of senior rank was Diamond himself. ‘So you are. We’ll get one of the others to visit forensics. Anyone will do as long as they insist on an instant result.’

  ‘Fred Dawkins?’

  There was a pause for thought. ‘I don’t think so. He makes a song and dance out of anything. Give it to Paul Gilbert.’ He replaced the lid and put the powder box aside.

  The cloth bag was the other part of Denise’s dresser’s kit, a collection of sewing materials, sticky tape, clothes brushes, scissors, paper tissues and medical items for almost any emergency. He didn’t spend long with it once he had checked for caustic soda and found none. ‘Can you force one of the doors? I want to see if there’s a parking ticket.’

  ‘She’ll have taken it with her,’ Halliwell said. ‘At one time this car park was pay and display. These days you take your card to the machine when you return.’

  ‘Which is why the car wasn’t noticed before this by a parking attendant,’ Diamond said. ‘I still want to check the glove compartment.’

  The jemmy was put to use again. The interior, when they got to it, contained nothing of genuine interest. Denise had been too organised and too tidy.

  ‘Where would she have left her handbag, I wonder?’ Diamond said. ‘I reckon it contains the parking ticket, her credit cards and her mobile phone, any of which could settle this.’

  Halliwell gave him a faintly amused glance. ‘In spite of all, you’re not a hundred per cent confident about the suicide, are you?’

  He ignored that. ‘Women hate being parted from their handbags.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have climbed up the ladder with it.’

  ‘It wasn’t lying around there. Maybe someone picked it up.’

  ‘Nicked it?’

  ‘Or handed it in as lost property. It could be as simple as that. We’ll make enquiries in the morning.’

  The meal was uneatable when he got home. He settled for his staple fare of baked beans on toast and went to bed. Raffles was already curled up asleep in the centre of the quilt. Getting in without disturbing him was a tricky manoeuvre and then he was left closer to the edge than he liked. He wasn’t sure why he gave that cat more respect than any of his team. Maybe it was because it had belonged to Steph.

  On Thursday mornin
g he woke late and with a headache. For much of the night he’d been unable to sleep and had finally got off about five. His brain had been in overdrive, trying to remember things from his childhood. The phone call to his sister Jean had raised more questions than it had answered. What could have triggered the incident at Llandudno when he’d first exhibited signs of this panic about theatres? It had been a variety show, for pity’s sake. What was sinister about that? More than a year later he’d been able to face Treasure Island at the Mermaid. No qualms about Long John Silver and the black spot and poor Ben Gunn, which you’d think might have unsettled a nervous kid. Then there was that one-act play about Richard III that Jean had recalled. It hadn’t been a school play. The art teacher – whose name he couldn’t remember – had belonged to some amateur dramatic society in Surbiton. They’d needed two boys and he’d been recruited along with another kid from his class. They’d rehearsed in some old army hut and the performances were one weekend in a church hall and that was as much as his memory would dredge up. He couldn’t even bring back the name of the other boy. He felt it was somewhere in his brain. It began with G, he thought. He wouldn’t remember the first name; boys all called each other by surnames then.

  In the small hours when he should have been asleep he was going through the alphabet, trying different letters after G. When he’d been through the vowels he tried consonants. At G with L he felt he was getting closer. Not Glass, but something roughly like it. Gladstone, Glaister, Glastonbury.

  And then it came to him: Glazebrook.

  Having got the surname, the rest followed. Mike Glazebrook.

  At three in the morning, he was downstairs going through phone directories looking for Glazebrooks. Ridiculous. He didn’t have directories for the whole country and anyway a lot of people were ex-directory these days. He made tea and went back to bed and still didn’t sleep. In the night hours a simple query can easily be magnified into a compulsion. It became a matter of urgency to find Glazebrook. How would you trace a schoolboy more than forty years later? Secondary schools mostly had old boys’ associations, but primary schools seemed not to bother. He’d heard of the Friends Reunited website and never looked at it until this night at 4.15 a.m. No joy. No Glazebrook. His contempt for websites was confirmed. It was beginning to seem a lost cause. If only Mike Glazebrook had progressed at the age of eleven to the same grammar school as Diamond, he’d have been sharper in the memory. He must have gone to some other school. Go through the local schools, then, and see if they had any record of the boy and what had become of him.